有许多古代文明如同转瞬即逝的烟火,湮没于人类的历史长河里。这些文明的文字,自然也就随着文明本身而失落。解密古文字,是一项耗费心智但极有意义的工作。历史学家像推理小说里的名侦探,凭着一点点微不足道的线索,耐心而细致地将一种失落已久的文字的全貌逐步拼凑出来。安德鲁·罗宾逊的这本《失落的语言》讲述的便是解密古文字的故事。 There are many ancient civilizations as fleeting fireworks, obliterated in the long history of mankind. The texts of these civilizations naturally fall with the civilization itself. Declassification of ancient writing is a mind-boggling but meaningful task. Historians, like detectives in reasoning novels, with a little trivial clue, patiently and carefully put together a picture of a long lost text. This “lost language” by Andrew Robinson tells the story of an ancient text.